by Lucy Ryder
This close she could clearly make out the dark ring encircling those unusual irises, and with the light striking his eyes from the overhead fixture, the tiny amber flecks scattered in the topaz made them appear almost gold. Like a sleek, silent jaguar.
A frisson of primitive awareness raced over her skin and she tore her gaze from his, thinking, Get a grip, Cassidy. He’s the pied piper of female hormones. He seduces women to pass the time, for heaven’s sake. And we are so done with that, remember? Unfortunately, the appalling truth was that her hormones, frozen for far too long, had chosen the worst possible moment to awaken.
Annoyed and a little spooked, she drew her brows together and reached for his hand, abruptly all business. She was here to do a job, she reminded herself sharply, not get her hormones overhauled.
But the instant their skin touched, a jolt of electricity zinged up her arm to her elbow.
She yanked at her hand and stumbled back a step. Her head went light, her knees wobbled and she felt like she’d just been zapped by a thousand volts of live current. He must have felt it too because he grunted and looked startled, leaving Cassidy struggling with the urge to check if her hair was on fire.
Realizing her mouth was hanging open, she snapped it closed and reminded herself this was just another example of static electricity. Big deal. Absolutely nothing to get excited about. Happens all the time.
However, one look out the corner of her eye made her question whether the thin mountain air was killing off brain cells because Crescent Lake’s hotshot hero could hardly be termed “just another” anything. With his thick, nearly black hair mussed around his head like a dark halo, glowing gold eyes and fallen-angel looks, he was about as ordinary as a tiger shark in a goldfish bowl.
Giving her head a shake, Cassidy realized she was getting a little hysterical and probably looked like an idiot standing there gaping at him like he’d grown horns and a tail.
Exhaling in a rush, she looked around for the missing glove. And spied it on the bunk.
Right between his hard jeans-clad thighs.
Her body went hot and her mouth went dry because, holy Toledo, those jeans fit him like they’d been molded to…well, everything.
Tearing her gaze away from checking out places she had no business checking out, she reached for the latex glove and gasped when their hands collided. He picked up the glove and held it out, tightening his grip when she reached for it. Her automatic “Thank you” froze in her throat when she looked up and caught his sleepy gaze locked on her…mouth. After a long moment his eyes rose.
Cassidy’s pulse took off like a sprinter off the starting blocks and all she could think was… No! Oh, no. Not happening, Cassidy. Get your mind on the job.
Her brow wrinkling with irritation, she tugged and told herself she was probably just lightheaded from all the fresh mountain air. Dr. Mahoney did not flutter just because some bad boy looked at her with his sexy eyes or talked in a rough baritone that she felt all the way to her belly.
“Excuse me?” she said in a tone that was cool and barely polite.
“I don’t bite,” he slurred with a loopy grin. “Unless you ask real nice.”
Narrowing her gaze, she yanked the glove free and considered smacking him with it. She was not there to play games with some hotshot Navy SEAL, thank you very much.
Setting her jaw, she wrestled with the glove a moment then reached for his hand when she was suitably protected.
“So…” he drawled after a long silence, during which she removed the blood-soaked bar towels to examine his injury, “where’s the cute white outfit?”
She looked up to catch him frowning at her pink scrubs top and jeans. “White outfit?”
“Yeah. You know…white, short, lots of little buttons?” He leaned sideways to scan the empty cell. “And where’s the box?”
“Box?” What the heck was he talking about?
“The boom box,” he said, as though she was missing a few IQ points. “Can’t dance without music.”
What?
“I am not a stripper, Major Kellan,” she said coolly, barely resisting the urge to grind her teeth. “And nurses don’t wear those any more.” She was accustomed to being mistaken for a nurse and on occasion an angel. But a stripper was a new one and she didn’t know whether to laugh or stab him with her syringe. Instead, she lifted a hand to brush a thick lock of dark hair off his forehead to check his head wound. He had to be hemorrhaging in there somewhere to have mistaken her for a stripper. Her hair was pulled back in a messy ponytail and her makeup had worn off hours ago.
So not stripper material.
“You’re not?” He sounded disappointed. She ignored him. The wound only needed a few butterfly strips and he’d probably have a whopping headache on top of a hangover. Hmph. That’s what you get for making a woman flutter without her permission, hotshot.
His left eye was almost swollen shut and a bruise had already turned the skin around it a dark mottled red. She gently probed the area and found no shifting under the skin. No cracked bones, but he’d have a beaut of a shiner and his split lip looked painful enough to put a crimp in his social life.
No kissing in his immediate future.
Wondering where that thought had come from, Cassidy reached into the bag for packaged alcohol swabs. “He did a good job on your face,” she murmured, dabbing at the wound.
Something lethal came and went in his expression, too quickly for Cassidy to interpret. But when he smirked and said, “You should see the other guys,” she decided she must have been mistaken and finally gave in to the mental eye roll that had been threatening. Other guys?
Maybe he’d been listening to too many stories about his own exploits.
“And I guess the knife wasn’t clean either?”
He grunted, but as she wasn’t fluent in manspeak, she was unsure if he was agreeing with her or in pain. “Broken beer bottle. Talk about a cliché,” he snorted roughly. “And forget the tetanus shot. Had one a few months ago…so I’m good.”
Good? It was her turn to snort—silently, of course.
Her obvious skepticism prompted an exasperated grimace. “I’m not drunk.”
She eyed him suspiciously. “You’re not?”
He shook his head and yawned again. “Just tired. An’ it’s Friday,” he reminded her as though she should know what he was talking about.
“Been carousing it up with the boys, have you?”
His look was reproachful. “Fridays are busy and Hannah’s usual bartender has food poisoning.”
“So, you were what?” Cassidy inquired dryly. “Keeping the peace as you served up whiskey and bar nuts?”
His gold eyes gleamed with appreciation and his battered lip curved in a lopsided smile. “If you’re worried, you could always stay the night. Just to be sure I’m not suffering from anything…fatal.”
Flicking on a penlight, Cassidy leaned closer. “I’m sure that won’t be necessary, Major,” she responded dryly, checking his pupil reaction. The only fatal thing he was suffering from was testosterone overload.
She stepped back to pick up another alcohol swab, before returning to press it to the bloodied cut above his eye. His hissed reaction had her gentling her touch as she cleaned it. “How much did you have to drink?”
“A couple,” he murmured, then responded to her narrow-eyed survey with a cocky smile that looked far too harmless for a man with his reputation. “Of sodas,” he added innocently, and her assessing look turned speculative. For a man who slurred like a drunk and smelled as though he’d bathed in beer, his gaze was surprisingly sharp and clear.
“I don’t drink on the job,” he said, hooking a finger in the hem of her top, and giving a little tug. His knuckles brushed against bare skin and sent goose bumps chasing across her skin. “Beer and stupidity don’t mix well.”
“Mmm,” she hummed, straight-faced, turning away to hide her body’s reaction to that casual touch. “Do you need help removing your shirt?” she asked ove
r her shoulder as she cleared away the soiled swabs. “I want to see your torso.”
He was silent for a few beats and when the air thickened, she lifted her gaze and her breath caught. “Your…um…torso wound, I mean.” It was no wonder he had women swooning all over the county.
As though reading her thoughts, his lips curled, drawing her reluctant gaze. The poet’s mouth and long inky lashes should have looked ridiculously feminine on a man so blatantly male but they only made him appear harder, more masculine somehow.
“Isn’t that supposed to be my line?”
Cursing the fair complexion that heated beneath his wicked gaze, Cassidy injected a little more frost into her tone. “Excuse me?”
His grin widened and he let out a rusty chuckle. “I like the way you say that. All cool and snooty and just a little bit superior.”
Leveling him with a look one generally reserved for ill-mannered adolescents, Cassidy queried mildly, “Are you flirting with me, Major Kellan?”
“Me?” Then he chuckled. “If you have to ask,” he drawled, leaning so close that she found herself retreating in an attempt to evade his potent masculine scent, “then I guess I’m out of practice.”
She said, “Uh huh,” and reached for the hem of his torn, bloodied T-shirt, pulling it from his waistband. The soft cotton was warm from his body and reeked of beer and something intrinsically male. She hastily drew it over his head and dropped it onto the bunk, ignoring his finely sculpted warrior’s body. It had been a long time since she’d found herself this close to a man who made her want to bury her nose in his throat and breathe in warm manly skin.
But medical professionals didn’t go around sniffing people’s necks or drooling over every set of spectacular biceps, triceps or awesome abs that ended up in their ER. And they certainly didn’t get the urge to follow that silky-looking happy trail that disappeared into a low-riding waistband with their lips either.
Or they shouldn’t, she lectured herself sternly, considering the last one had left her with a deep sense of betrayal and a determination not to get sucked in again by a set of hard abs and a wicked smile.
Relieved to focus on something other than silky hair and warm manly skin, she leaned closer to probe the wound, murmuring an apology when he gave a sharp hiss. Over three inches long, it angled upwards towards his pec and the surrounding area was already darkening into what looked like the shape of a fist. Wincing, she ran the tips of her fingers over the bruised area just as the outer door banged opened, slamming against the wall.
The sound was as loud and unexpected as a gunshot. In a blur of eerily silent movement, Major Kellan surged off the bunk, shoving her roughly aside as he dropped into a crouch. Deadly menace slashed the air, sending Cassidy stumbling backwards.
She gave a shocked gasp and gaped at a wide, perfectly proportioned, perfectly tanned, muscular back bare inches from her face.
CHAPTER TWO
INSTANTLY ALERT AND battle-ready, Sam barely felt the burn of his injured palm or the line of fire streaking across his belly. Adrenaline and blood stormed his system and in some distant corner of his brain he realized it was happening. Again. Dammit.
Not now. Please, not now.
But he was helpless to stop it—helpless against the firestorm of images that tended to explode in his brain—instantly warping his sense of reality and triggering an instinct to protect. With deadly force.
From somewhere behind him he heard a gasp, and the young deputy entering the holding area abruptly stopped in his tracks.
One look at Sam and the kid’s eyes widened to dinner plates. He went sheet-white and dropped the fold-up steel table. It teetered a moment then toppled over with loud clatter. The deputy jerked back as though he’d been prodded with a shock stick.
“M-Major K-Kellan?” he squeaked, his wide-eyed look of terrified embarrassment reaching Sam as though from a distance.
“It’s just m-me, M-Major Kellan. L-Larry?”
Pain lanced through Sam’s skull and he staggered, clutching his head. Sweat broke out along his spine so abruptly he felt dizzy. His strength drained, along with the surge of adrenaline that had fired his synapses and instinctively turned him into a lethal weapon. It had also turned him into something he didn’t recognize any more. Something he didn’t like.
Sam forced back the bile that came with particularly bad flashbacks—triggered no doubt by the violence of the evening and the sudden unexpected noise. Dammit. He wanted to smash his fist into the wall and roar with anger and despair.
But he couldn’t…couldn’t lose control now. Not with an audience.
The blood drained abruptly from his head, leaving him clammy and lightheaded. “Dammit, Larry,” he growled, and sagged as though someone had cut him off at the knees.
Squeezing his eyes closed to block out the wildly spinning cell, he staggered and hoped he wouldn’t embarrass himself by passing out—or tossing his cookies. He could just imagine what the sexy nurse would think about the hotshot SEAL then.
“I’m s-sorry, M-Major…it’s just that I had b-both hands f-full.”
He felt her an instant before her arms wrapped around him, easing him backwards, soft and silky and smelling like cool mountain air. Mortified, Sam pulled away and collapsed wearily onto the narrow bunk, slinging an arm across his face.
“Don’ sweat it, kid,” he slurred, and prayed for oblivion. Unfortunately, sleep always came with a heavy price and he wasn’t ready to go there. The nightmares were still too real, the memories too raw, the latest flashback still too recent. So vivid he could taste the fear, hear the furious pounding of his pulse in his head.
The Navy shrinks had warned that they’d get worse before they got better. They’d also warned that they’d last for years.
Well, hell. Just what he was looking forward to. A constant reminder of his greatest failure.
“Major Kellan?”
In the meantime he had to face Nurse…what’s-her-name.
Swiping his good hand over his face, he eased open his eyes and focused on the statuesque blonde watching him warily and with more than a hint of concern.
He didn’t want her pity—or anything else she had to offer. He wanted to be left alone. Needed to be left alone. “I’m fine,” he snapped, furious with himself and embarrassed that she’d witnessed an episode. Hoping to distract his brain from the endless loop of horrifying images, Sam focused his attention on her.
Yeah, much better to focus on the nurse.
With her thick silvery blond hair haphazardly pulled off a stunning face dominated by deep green eyes and a lush wide mouth, she looked like a sexy angel and smelled like a wood sprite—all fresh and clean and earthy like the mountains in spring. Raindrops glistened in her hair like diamonds, giving her an ethereal quality that made him wonder if he was drunk or just plain losing it.
“No, you’re not,” she contradicted softly. “But you will be.”
For one confused moment Sam wondered if he’d spoken his thoughts out loud before he remembered he’d said he was fine.
“Sure,” he growled, clenching his teeth on a wave of grief and anger. I will. But my friends are still dead. And the woman patching me up thinks Crescent Lake’s hero is a whacked-out crazy with a drinking problem.
Yeah, right. Hero. What a joke.
Heroes didn’t let their teams down. They didn’t return home with their buddies in body bags no matter what the Navy shrinks said. But his week of detention in a small, dark hole, deep in mountainous enemy territory wasn’t something he talked about. He could barely think about it let alone talk about the hours of interrogation and torture that had left half his team dead.
The only reason he’d survived long enough to escape had been because they’d found out he was a medic and wanted him to treat some sick kid. He’d tried to bargain until they let his team go but they’d dragged in the team rookie and held a gun to his head. Afterwards they’d—
No. Don’t go there. Not when the horror was still so fresh
in his mind that every time he closed his eyes, he was back in that hellhole.
“Major Kellan?”
Jolted from his unpleasant thoughts, Sam saw the syringe and shot out his hand to wrap hard fingers around her wrist. Other than a slight widening of her eyes, the nurse held her ground without flinching. After a couple of tense beats she arched her brow, the move managing to convey a boatload of indulgent concern. Like he was a cranky toddler up past his bedtime. He groaned silently. Just great.
His face heated and he narrowed his eyes but she silently held his gaze, like he wasn’t almost a foot taller, a hundred pounds heavier, and a whole hell of a lot meaner.
Clearly the woman was missing a few IQ points, he decided with a mix of admiration and annoyance, or she wasn’t as soft and silky as she looked. He closed his eyes on a surge of self-disgust. All he needed to complete his humiliation was for her to ruffle his hair and kiss his “owie” better.
Way to go, hotshot.
“Do I need to wave a white flag or are you a friendly?” she asked with a hint of amusement, and when his lashes rose, she indicated the hand wrapped around her wrist.
He grimaced and released her. Jeez, could this get any worse? Embarrassment had him muttering, “I don’t hit women.” He jerked his chin at the syringe. “Unless they’re armed.”
She followed his gaze. “Oh, this?” Her mouth curved sweetly into a smile that instantly made him suspicious and want to take a greedy bite of that lush lower lip. “Surely you’re not afraid of a little needle, Major?” Her smile grew as though she’d just learnt his deepest, darkest secret. Not even close, lady. “A big tough SEAL like you?” She made a soothing sound in the back of her throat. “It won’t hurt a bit. Trust me.”
Sam grunted out a laugh and hauled himself into a sitting position, hissing through clenched teeth when the move sent pain radiating through his chest and burning across his belly. “That’s what they all say,” he growled. “Right before they stab you in the heart.”
“Not to worry,” she said, moving closer and wrapping him in clean mountain air. “I have no interest in your heart, Major. I’m aiming a little lower than that.”
